Iraq's not at the end of the journey yet. But they've gotten to where corruption is a much bigger problem than terrorism. The example they're setting of voting for their leaders is a good example for the other countries launching Arab Spring rebellions. That's how a culture changes.

Oh, meanwhile bin Laden got killed, and good riddance. Probably the toughest call Obama had to make in his presidency so far. I figure at some point he asked "What's the worst case scenario?" and a CIA analyst replied "It could be disinformation from a pro-AQ faction of the ISI. They'd want to ambush an American attack to spark an Islamist uprising against the current government. So we'd have several dozen dead SEALs and a civil war raging in Pakistan, possibly with nuclear weapons on both sides. But we evaluate that as less than a 15% probability." That'll give a man a tight belly until the helicopters are back at base.